New ‘Aquaman’ Photo Shows Off Amber Heard’s Mermaid-esque Mera

This afternoon, director James Wan shared a new photo of Amber Heard’s Mera in Aquaman, and lo and behold, color has arrived in the DCEU at last, and we saw it, and it was good. Well, hopefully it’s good. Wan has a solid track record, and he proved his blockbuster action chops with Furious 7, but we reserve the right to remain skeptical that this, uh, splash of color (sorry) means that the DCEU will magically become a place where “fun” things happen.

This isn’t our first look at Aquaman’s number one boo — Warner Bros. previously released an image of Heard as Hera in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and it was nothing like the pic James Wan posted today:

Wow, Poison Ivy looks SICK. Just kidding (sort of). A few other things immediately come to mind after looking at this pic, though — like, maybe Aquaman will actually be fun, which seems to be a dirty word in the grim and gritty DCEU. Also, it’s as if the costume designer thought, “What if Joel Schumacher…but wet?” And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Schumacher’s Batman movies were campy and goofy as hell; they might not have been “good” movies (they definitely weren’t), but they definitely weren’t boring. And oh man, everyone is going to have the wettest, wildest hair throughout this ENTIRE movie, aren’t they? That could also be fun.

For contrast, here’s the pic of Mera in Justice League, where she looks less like a comic book hero come to life and more like the star of an Evanescence music video inspired by sea myths:

Warner Bros/DC Comics

You can barely tell that her costume is green or that her hair is red. This image is so severe, and a crazy outfit like that deserves to be experienced in full technicolor — not through Zack Snyder’s custom NuMetal filter on Instagram.

For now, we remain optimistic about James Wan’s entry in the DCEU and what it could mean for the franchise post-Justice League (like, you know FUN). This new photo of Mera is a good start.